Funny how a song can transport you right back to a certain place and time, with all the feelings of the day.
When "A Whiter Shade of Pale" was on the radio in 1967, I was among their target audience - an angst-ridden teenager, who was (to quote the lyric from 'A Chorus Line,') "too young to take over; too old to ignore.' I had trouble getting along at home, didn't like myself or where I was living, and I just wanted "out." I would have run away to San Francisco that Summer, if I felt I could have made it work. I didn't - I stuck it out, and did the responsible thing. (Leaving home happened a few years later, just two days after I graduated from high school.)
I was 14 in 1967, with a large paper route. I listened tirelessly to the local AM station on my transistor radio while delivering papers every afternoon, then listened even more to the clock radio in my bedroom the rest of the time. This song played endlessly on the radio, and I've heard it a million times. All these years later, whenever I happen to hear the song, it takes me right back to that time. I again go through all the feelings I had back then, and it's like being there all over again. I've come a long way, and I'm much happier now. But man, it was an awful time for me in those years.
Further evidence of the soundtrack of my life. RIP Gary. Your music continues to take me to a higher plane.
Dave
